
4 Introduction
order. The ‘surplus product’, on the other hand, is that portion of social output
used to maintain the non-producing members of society (a heterogeneous lot,
ranging from the idle rich, to politicians, to the armed forces, to retired working
people), plus that portion devoted to net expansion of the stock of means of
production. Any society capable of supporting non-producing members, and
of generating an economically progressive programme of net investment, must
have some mechanism for compelling or inducing the direct producers to pro-
duce more than is needed simply to maintain themselves. The precise nature of
this mechanism is, according to Marxist theory, the key to understanding the
society as a whole—not just the ‘economy’, but also the general form of the state
and of politics. Our claim is that the Soviet system put into effect a mode of
extraction of the surplus product quite different from that of capitalism. To put
this point in context, some more general historical background may be useful.
Consider, first, the distinction between feudal and capitalist society. Un-
der feudalism, the extraction of a surplus product was plainly ‘visible’ to all.
The specific forms were various, but one typical method involved the peasants
working their own fields for so many days in the week, and the lord’s land for
the rest. Alternatively, the peasants might have to surrender a portion of the
produce of their own fields to the lord. If such a society is to reproduce itself,
the direct producers must be held in some form of direct subordination or servi-
tude; political and legal equality is out of the question. A religious ideology
that speaks of the distinct ‘places’ allotted to individuals on this earth and of
the virtues of knowing one’s proper place, and that promises a heavenly reward
for those who fulfill their role in God’s earthly scheme, will also be very useful.
Under capitalism, on the other hand, the extraction of the surplus product
becomes ‘invisible’ in the form of the wage contract. The parties to the contract
are legal equals, each bringing their property to the market and conducting a
voluntary transaction. No bell rings in the factory to announce the end of the
portion of the working day spent producing the equivalent of the workers’ wages,
and the beginning of the production of profits for the employer. Nonetheless,
the workers’ wages are substantially less than the total value of the product
they generate: this is the basis of Marx’s theory of exploitation. The degree
of exploitation that is realised depends on the struggle between workers and
capitalists, in its various forms: over the level of wages, over the pace of pro-
duction and the length of the working day, and over the changes in technology
that determine how much labour time is required to produce a given quantum
of wage-goods.
Soviet socialism, particularly following the introduction of the first five-year
plan under Stalin in the late 1920s, introduced a new and non-capitalist mode of
extraction of a surplus. This is somewhat obscured by the fact that workers were
still paid ruble wages, and that money continued in use as a unit of account in
the planned industries, but the social content of these ‘monetary forms’ changed
drastically. Under Soviet planning, the division between the necessary and
surplus portions of the social product was the result of political decisions. For
the most part, goods and labour were physically allocated to enterprises by
the planning authorities, who would always ensure that the enterprises had